1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus such as a color copying machine, facsimile machine, printer and the like, and more particularly, it relates to an image forming apparatus for forming an image by using a plurality of discrete recording heads and a method for manufacturing such recording heads.
2. Related Background Art
In such image forming apparatuses, particularly in order to permit compact and high speed recording by utilizing electrophotography, a recording portion has been constituted by a plurality (same as the number of photosensitive drums) of discrete recording elements (for example, light emitting element arrays such as LED arrays, light permeability controlling element arrays such as liquid crystal shutters, element arrays capable of controlling light reflection, or the like) or by direct recording system such as an ink jet recording system.
In such a recording portion, since a plurality of recording element chips are cut from a single wafer and a recording head is formed by straightly arranging a plurality of such recording element chips, it is desirable that such recording element chips have the same recording features.
However, in the single wafer, fundamentally, since there are differences in features of wafer itself and in features due to manufacturing process between end portions and a central portion of the wafer, it is difficult to form all of the recording element chips to have satisfactory good performance, and, thus, the number of actually available recording element chips is decreased, thereby making the recording head expensive.